Dell’s storage software innovation to help clients make the most of data

Dell Technologies is enhancing software across its industry-leading storage portfolio, driving increased intelligence, automation, cyber resiliency and multi-cloud flexibility, said a company release.

“Organisations all over the world look to Dell to help them move faster while turning their data into a competitive advantage,” said Jeff Clarke, vice chairman and co-chief operating officer, Dell Technologies. “We’re delivering major software innovation across our portfolio to help customers make the most of their data and resources.”

More than 500 software advancements across Dell PowerStore, PowerMax and PowerFlex deliver faster data insights, better multi-cloud data control and increased cyber resiliency at no cost to existing customers. These advancements are the latest examples of Dell storage software innovation following the introduction of Project Alpine, which will bring the enterprise capacity, performance and protection of Dell storage software to public clouds.

“IQVIA uses the power of data science to help customers accelerate clinical development and healthcare outcomes,” said Ken Boyer, director of global storage, IQVIA. “Driving transformative outcomes requires an infrastructure partner just as focused on innovation. Dell Technologies storage delivers the automation, security, performance and scale we need as we reimagine life sciences.”

Dell PowerStore, the fastest ramping new architecture in company history, will deliver up to a 50%² mixed workload performance boost and up to 66%³ greater capacity. Customers can better plan business continuity strategies with software-only high availability metro replication configured in as few as five clicks. Additional software advancements make it possible for organisations to:

• Better support and secure file workloads with file level retention, native file replication and support for third-party file monitoring and ransomware protection.
• Take advantage of deeper VMware integrations including improved vVols latency and performance plus simplified disaster recovery with vVols replication, VM-level snapshots and fast clones.
• Maximise performance of new hardware with end-to-end NVMe support and increased networking speeds.

Dell PowerMax will introduce cyber resiliency advancements including cyber vaults for traditional and mainframe deployments. CloudIQ ransomware capabilities help detect cyberattacks early to minimise exposure and speed recovery. PowerMax now offers up to 65 million secure snapshots to improve cyber recovery and increases efficiency with new 4:1 data reduction guarantee.⁵ Additional software-driven updates help organisations:

• Increase productivity with automated storage operations such as multi-array smart provisioning, workload optimisation, and health monitoring and remediation.
• Quickly move data to public clouds with faster cloud snapshot shipping and recovery, built-in high availability to minimise downtime and easy restore of cloud-based object storage data.
• Experience double the performance⁶ with up to 50% better response times⁷ in demanding application and mainframe environments on two new NVMe-based PowerMax models. Anytime Upgrade customers are eligible for non-disruptive upgrades.

Dell PowerFlex software-defined infrastructure will consolidate traditional and modern workloads with new file services that allow for unified block and file capabilities on a single platform. PowerFlex simplifies multi-cloud and DevOps with the broadest file and block⁸ support for all major Kubernetes and container orchestration platforms from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Red Hat, SUSE and VMware. Additional updates allow customers to:

• Realize greater TCO savings by consolidating traditional and containerised workloads using unified block and file storage services across bare metal and virtualised deployments.
• Simplify PowerFlex deployment through NVMe-over-TCP connectivity with consistent standards-based storage networking.
• Streamline operations with new unified compute, storage and system lifecycle management capabilities within PowerFlex Manager software.

“Organisations are increasingly seeking IT infrastructure that delivers a cloud-like experience wherever their data lives,” said Eric Burgener, research vice-president, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms and Technologies Group, IDC. “Dell has designed these sweeping software and hardware enhancements across its comprehensive, multi-cloud infrastructure portfolio to deliver that experience with greater automation, security and control.”

“Our customers choose Dell Technologies storage because it is trusted and delivers meaningful innovation that helps organisations keep pace with the changing business and IT landscape,” said Mike Heintzelman, vice-president, Advanced Solutions, TD Synnex. “The significant software innovations introduced across the Dell storage portfolio will help organisations simplify IT operations, innovate securely and get more value from their data.”